


invariably, continue, continue

by sayounarahitori



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29155611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayounarahitori/pseuds/sayounarahitori
Summary: Late one night, Renjun asks questions Doyoung might find hard to answer.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan, Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 7
Kudos: 187





	invariably, continue, continue

**Author's Note:**

> just a little something for doyoung's birthday! i'm glad i finally wrote something with renjun in it. hope i can do more in the future. <3
> 
> title, of course, from nct 127's "not alone".

Someone always asks.

Why are you always fighting?

Don't you get tired?

Is it annoying?

How is it, to be this close, this sharing, this open?

What do you really feel?

Do you ever wish things were different?

So when Renjun asks, Doyoung's first instinct is to joke it away, to brush it off, to reuse some line from a handful he keeps just for the occasion.

It's late, and Renjun should probably be going, but neither of them wants to bother the staff, and they have one more episode left of the drama Doyoung is showing him, and Doyoung just suggests Renjun stay and sleep in Taeyong's bed, since he's still resting at home anyway.

"Shouldn't we, ah, ask hyung?" Renjun asks, almost as if he's nervous, and Doyoung wants to laugh a little at the concealed, but noticeable display of intimidation Taeyong somehow still inspires in the younger members that don't spend as much time with him.

He starts reassuring Renjun that it's fine, of course Taeyong wouldn't mind, but then bites his tongue when the next thing he wants to say is something along the lines of "I'm there half the time anyway".

"I'll call to check with him," Doyoung says placatingly, patting Renjun's shoulder.

Taeyong sounds groggy even though he picked up almost immediately. Besides, he keeps saying that he wasn't sleeping anyway, and also why didn't Doyoung call him earlier, and has Doyoung met Chenle's dog yet, and before he knows, they're talking about something entirely unrelated to what he actually called to inquire about.

Doyoung, admittedly, starts feeling a little weird upon realising that he's been bickering with Taeyong for a good couple minutes while Renjun simply sits besides him, so he hastens to come back to the actual matter at hand.

"Of course he can," Taeyong replies, predictably. "It's not like I'm using it. Unless you are, of course."

"I'm what," Doyoung replies, cautious.

"Using my bed."

Renjun is regarding him curiously, and Doyoung really doesn't want to get into this with someone else present, and so he mumbles his goodbyes and hangs up before Taeyong can say anything worse.

"It's okay," he announces, chancing another glance at Renjun. "He said it's okay."

Renjun nods, hesitates, looks at the darkened screen, fidgets — and that's when he asks.

"You're very close, aren't you? You and Taeyong-hyung," he adds, leaving no space for misunderstanding. "How do you… make it work?"

Some part of Doyoung, still feeling antagonistic after the call, wants to laugh it off, hide behind something only half true, something he doesn't need to think too hard about.

But in Renjun's eyes, Doyoung sees some wonder mixed with trepidation, something scared and yearning and a little too familiar to just brush it off. He feels like there's too much behind the question that goes unsaid, and so he speaks slowly, carefully, “We haven’t always been close. Not like this, I think. Or maybe it’s just hindsight, because I feel like— we’ve changed so much, and our relationship changed, and that’s just natural, I think? There have been a lot of ups and downs, and at times we didn’t really understand each other, or agreed with each other, but it just made us stronger. Both individually and together.”

He sighs, hands smoothing over the pillow in his lap.

"You know this, though, don't you? You know how close you can get. And that sometimes you drift apart from friends, and that it’s okay, too.” Renjun looks him in the eye, and Doyoung stares at him inquisitively, daring him to ask what he really wants to know.

"But isn't it too much?"

And behind those words, like a faint echo: _Isn't it not enough?_ — Doyoung doesn't know if he's imagining it, doesn’t dare presume.

He laughs a little, instead. “How much is too much? Only you can say that, I think. You know, most people don’t live with their friends, they don’t constantly work with their friends… I’m not sure anything normal applies in our situation. If it gets too much for you, then you just— deal with it,” he finishes awkwardly.

It’s tough, he knows, for some of the people in their industry, especially if, like Renjun — like most of the Dream — they got here young. Too young, maybe, to know how to stand on their own, to establish their own self-worth, to know not to depend on the people around them too much. You learn to be close, you learn that they’re always there for you, and then, in a single moment — for whatever reason — it can all be gone.

“I’m just afraid—” Renjun starts, something pained in his voice, but it gets swallowed down almost immediately. “When you live together, and work together, and spend so much time with each other, can’t it get… tiring?”

Doyoung wonders too, sometimes. It should, right? Staying a door knock away, going to wake Taeyong up every day, reminding him to eat and drink and sleep, enduring his teasing — it seems so much, but then, in a flash, he’s not there, he’s gone, and Doyoung wishes he could say he doesn’t miss him. Wishes even a single day went by without a gnawing hunger inside him.

_How do you keep it._

That’s the question Renjun seems to be asking, isn’t it?

“Well, yeah,” Doyoung chuckles. “But that doesn’t mean you should throw away what you have, you know? I know it must be hard right now, when you can’t even go to your family—”

“That’s not—” Renjun protests, and Doyoung stops to listen. “I mean. I don’t want to throw anything away, I’m just… I feel like I _should_ be tired. I should be resting, and enjoying my alone time, but instead I’m here and—” his mouth snaps shut, but the damage is already done.

Doyoung knew, of course, that he’s not the primary reason Renjun is at their dorms this often, but it’s still somewhat satisfying to get the confirmation.

“Sorry,” Renjun mumbles. “I didn’t mean — I do enjoy your company, hyung.”

“I know,” Doyoung says, amused. “It’s okay, Renjun-ah.”

They sit like that for a few minutes, Doyoung wondering what to say — if he really can say anything, if he really is the one to ask, considering he still hasn’t made peace with how Taeyong’s abscence is making him feel.

“Sometimes,” Renjun murmurs, barely audible, “it’s like both too much and not enough.”

Looking at him, it’s like Doyoung can see himself — even if he knows that empathy is a perilous path, one that can lead to dangerous assumptions, — and he wishes desperately he could spare Renjun the heartbreak and the confusion, as if everything could be solved by just finding the right words.

“Yeah,” he says instead. “It is.”

Even if the similarity between them makes him ache sometimes, even if Renjun’s desperation makes him want to put on the older brother mantle so badly, well, sometimes you just don’t know what’s best for other people. Doyoung has learned this the hard way.

Renjun sighs and then yawns.

Doyoung laughs. “Come on,” he says, closing the laptop. “We can talk more tomorrow, if you want. We should both try to sleep now.”

“Of course, hyung,” Renjun nods, ever-so-obedient, a stark contrast to how he behaves in other times, usually enabled by or in the vicinity of Donghyuck.

Speaking of.

"By the way," Doyoung notes, raising his voice just in case the movement behind the door wasn’t a figment of his imagination. "Taeyong-hyung's bed is big enough for two. Just saying."

Renjun’s flushed cheeks and a squeak from outside his room, somehow, make Doyoung believe that it will be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/boldmoonwalk) | [cc](https://curiouscat.me/boldmoonwalk)


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